Casey Kasem, Iconic Radio Host, Dies at 82

For more than three decades, American pop music shared the same voice— the voice of Casey Kasem, who died on Sunday at the age of 82, as a result of Lewy body dementia. Kasem launched the American Top 40 radio show in 1970, a four-hour program that broadcast the week’s top-selling songs according to Billboard magazine, with Kasem’s anecdotes, advice, and shout-outs linking the songs. Kasem hosted that show, or competitor Casey’s Top 40, consistently until handing off the reins to Ryan Seacrest in 2004.

Kasem’s death—at a hospital in Gig Harbor, Washington according to The New York Times and confirmed by his daughter Kerri’s Facebook post— is the conclusion of a protracted and sad battle between his children and his wife, Jean Kasem, who removed him on May 7 from the Santa Monica nursing home where had been living. The conflict between Kasem’s children and wife exploded in front of news cameras on June 2, as Kerri Kasem removed her father from a private home and transferred him to a hospital, and Jean Kasem shouted and threw raw meat at her stepdaughter.

But the ugly details of Kasem’s final days shouldn’t, and won’t, overshadow his enormous legacy and influence on multiple generations of pop-music listeners (which is to say, everyone). In a statement received by the AP, Ryan Seacrest called his death a loss for radio listeners worldwide. No matter what generation of pop music you grew up with, it’s impossible to listen to any American Top 40 broadcast— like the one below, from December 1984— and not hear your own childhood speaking back to you. Kasem wasn’t the voice of one generation; he was the voice of several. He will be missed by all of them.